LOWELL -- When Walter Bayliss applied for retirement in 2006, the city Retirement Board accepted his application despite the fact Bayliss had not resigned from his longtime post as a license commissioner.

Retirement law requires a public official to officially resign from his current government position before retirement is granted. So late last month, the Retirement Board voted 4-1 to rescind Bayliss' $876.96 annual pension from the city's retirement system to rectify the error of the previous board.

However, a Sun review of Bayliss' retirement file confirmed recent comments by retirement officials indicating the mistake made by the 2006 board was one of several apparent errors made by officials in regards to Bayliss since he first sought entrance into the system nearly 20 years ago.

The first apparent error dates back to 1995. That's when Bayliss applied to enter the retirement system shortly after getting appointed to the Lowell License Commission by then-City Manager Richard Johnson.

Bayliss said Johnson promised him a pension and health insurance in order to convince him to leave his post on the Lowell Memorial Auditorium Board of Trustees and take the liquor-panel appointment.

At its March 1995 meeting, the Retirement Board voted to accept Bayliss as a member of the system. On Bayliss' 1995 enrollment form, the city's Payroll Department said Bayliss was an appointed, part-time employee, who worked 50 percent of full-time hours.

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But Michael Sacco, the Retirement Board's attorney, wrote in a letter to Bayliss in November that the board determined members of the License Commission were never eligible to become members of the retirement system.

Sacco wrote that was because "they were neither elected officials nor satisfied the required 20 or more hours of permanent employment each week."

The board is trying to determine why Bayliss was admitted as a member of the retirement system. In the recent past, it has removed license commissioners who did not meet membership criteria from the system, Sacco told The Sun.

In 2010, the board revoked the membership in the system of License Commissioners Brian Akashian and Raymond Weicker.

Sacco said Bayliss' membership was not reviewed at that time because the board was focused on active members of the system. He also noted the board does not code retirees from the department they retired from, so it was not "readily apparent" Bayliss was in the system as a license commissioner.

Buyback issue

Later in 1995, Bayliss said the Retirement Office told him he could buy back his time on the Auditorium Board of Trustees to count toward his retirement.

Bayliss submitted a note to the board giving the dates of his auditorium trustees' service.

The Retirement Board voted in December 1995 to grant Bayliss five years and eight months of creditable service upon payment to purchase his service on the auditorium board from December 1983 to 1995.

According to the buyback form prepared by the Retirement Office, Bayliss was charged $1,372.22 to purchase the service, a number based on annual wages in most years of $1,200.

The buyback calculation form Senior Clerk Gail Trzcienski filled out mistakenly listed Bayliss as having served on the License Commission, and board minutes reflected the apparent clerical error on the form.

But it appears Bayliss should never have been able to buy back his time on the auditorium board because he was not compensated for the work, an oversight some city Retirement Board members recently raised.

According to Sacco, members of a retirement system cannot purchase and receive credit for uncompensated service.

Bayliss, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran, told The Sun that auditorium trustees were informed they would not be paid for their service because of the difficult financial condition the auditorium was in.

Improper retirement

The then-license commissioner's next major interaction with the Retirement Office came in 2006.

Bayliss decided he wanted to retire that year because City Manager Bernie Lynch announced he was going to eliminate health insurance for board members who were not entitled to it under the law. Bayliss knew retirees receive health insurance through the city.

Bayliss said he planned to resign from the license board in order to retire, but when he was handing in his papers the Retirement Office told him he did not have to stop serving on the license board because it was no longer considered a full-time job. Because of that advice, Bayliss said he decided to stay on the board.

The Retirement Board has not challenged Bayliss' recollection of what he was told by the Retirement Office in 2006. However, Sacco said Bayliss' application to the Retirement Office identified Nov. 15, 2006, as his date of retirement and that he was retiring from the city's License Commission.

"By submitting the retirement application to the board, it is assumed that the member has stopped working as represented, and since the board did not receive any further deductions from Mr. Bayliss' compensation, it appeared as if he had in fact resigned," said Sacco.

In addition to allowing Bayliss to retire without resigning, retirement officials did not notice from the time he retired in 2006 to when he agreed to resign in September 2012, that Bayliss was receiving both his pension and a $1,300 annual stipend as a license commissioner.

According to a Sun tally, Bayliss' combined earnings during those years were higher than his earnings from the position he retired from, which means they were in excess of what he was allowed to earn under retirement law.

But concerns about Bayliss' membership in the retirement system were not brought to the board's attention until last fall, which is when Bayliss challenged Lynch's removal of him from the License Commission.

Sacco said none of the board members or staff was employed by the board when the apparent mistakes were made, so "it is difficult to comment as to why the mistakes occurred."

Shannon Dowd, the Retirement Board's administrator, said even prior to the Bayliss issues coming to light, she had put policies in place designed to prevent the buying back of uncompensated service or the granting of retirement to officials who have not resigned their positions.

Bayliss said he does not hold any ill will toward the retirement officials who appear to have given him some incorrect information.

"I don't think any one at City Hall set me up for this," said Bayliss, adding that the Retirement Board would probably find problems with the retirements of other employees if it investigated their cases as much as they investigated his.

Asked if he bore any responsibility for not realizing he was given inaccurate information by retirement officials, Bayliss said he did not.

"I did what I was told, which is what anyone would have done," Bayliss said.

Bayliss intends to appeal the Retirement Board's recent vote to the state's Contributory Retirement Appeal Board with the assistance of Attorney Peter Nicosia of Tyngsboro. Nicosia helped Bayliss reach a settlement with the city over Lynch's attempt to oust him from the License Commission.

In losing his pension, Bayliss also will see his city health-insurance benefits cut off.

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